Rating: 
Summary: Takes the tears out of learning C++
Review: Wanna learn C++? Buy Zak's book!Zak's "Introduction to Programming with C++" is an easy to understand and follow book that will help beginners quickly grasp and begin using the major concepts of C++. The explanations are very thorough, and each lesson contains several programming examples that reinforce the new concept, each explained thoroughly, line by line. By following Zak's lessons and doing a handful of the exercises included at the end of each lesson, an absolute rock bottom beginner will quickly be creating 2 dimensional arrays and whipping up classes just as if they'd been doing it their whole lives. While this is an outstanding text for learning, it's lousy as reference for later on when you want to quickly review a concept or some syntax. Buy Zak's book first and invest in a good reference book when you're done. You'll be glad you did.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for beginners -- Doesn't go far
Review: Wonderful for absolute beginners to programming. The first 3 chapters teach nothing but logic. What this book covers, it covers excellently for those with no experience with the language. She leaves no item un-explained, and she assumes extremely little (which obviously offends pretentious types). The problem? The book covers (probably) the least of any decent beginner's C++ book. Doesn't get into pointers, etc. it mentions them very sparsely, but it doesn't "cover" them. It also doesn't give much real world information, such as the variable++ convention (she uses variable = variable + 1).
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